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U.S. Recognition of Jerusalem a Turning Point
(Algemeiner) Benjamin Kerstein - Moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem represented a major defeat for the Palestinians' efforts to delegitimize Israel, said Joel Fishman, a fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. "Over the past few years, the Palestinians and the Arab countries have been trying through the United Nations to negate and deny the historical link of the Jewish people to Jerusalem, and to make it appear as if we were simply intruders from outside without any standing and without any rights....By recognizing Jerusalem, President Trump put an end to the spread of this falsehood." The U.S. move also puts an end to a concept known as "parallelism" that developed during the Oslo peace process of the 1990s, Fishman added. "The reality of Israel began to be considered as parallel to that of the Palestinians.... Through the idea of introducing parallelism and 'evenhandedness,' the existence of the Jewish state was somehow predicated on the condition of the Palestinians and how they felt about the world." "Yasser Arafat...said that the Jewish state would not have international recognition and legitimacy without the approval of the Palestinians....Through the act of recognition, Trump has brought an end to the era of parallelism."